I recently spoke with Richard Hanania about Part 1 of Devils by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Devils (also translated as Demons or The Possessed) by Dostoevsky was published in 1872.
Devils follows a cluster of older intellectuals and younger radicals in a provincial Russian town. They debate big ideas—freedom, equality, revolution. Dostoevsky depicts what happens when people absorb ideas from the previous generation and take them further than their elders intended.
What makes the novel so sharp is its grounding. It plays out in gossip, literary readings, and dinner parties where radical ideas circulate and gain respectability in polite society. Dostoevsky knew what he was writing about. He was arrested as a radical leftist as a young man and served time in a Siberian prison. He came out the other side with a different view of human nature. One that took seriously both humanity’s capacity for self-destruction and the need for something to believe in.
You can read my review of part 1 here. Richard and I go deeper in the story.
